Hawaii Gets Fake Alert About Inbound Missile

Source: The Daily Beast

Hawaii residents woke up to a text message warning of an imminent missile attack on Saturday, though authorities quickly said there was no such threat. “Ballistic missile threat inbound to Hawaii. Seek shelter immediately. This is not a drill,” the warning read. The Hawaii Emergency Management Agency tweeted out a statement saying there is “no missile threat” to the area after news of the alerts had flooded Twitter. Authorities have yet to comment on the source of the bogus alerts.

44. It's like when you get an Amber alert text on your phone. n/t

27. Please oh please let this be done at the federal level.

Such a great ad could be written about drumpf's administration, ahem, "keeping America safe" by "accidentally" lying about a missle attack? Don't think the deplorables will like this, st least those that have even a shred of sanity left won't.

28. Hillary did it.

29. Mystery solved!

"Hawaii residents woke up to a text message warning of an imminent missile attack on Saturday, though authorities quickly said there was no such threat. “Ballistic missile threat inbound to Hawaii. Seek shelter immediately. This is not a drill,” the warning read. The Hawaii Emergency Management Agency tweeted out a statement saying there is “no missile threat” to the area after news of the alerts had flooded Twitter. Hawaii Gov. David Ige later said the warning and subsequent panic were caused by an employee pressing the “wrong button” during a shift change."

An early-morning emergency alert mistakenly warning of an incoming ballistic missile attack was dispatched to cellphones across Hawaii on Saturday, setting off widespread panic in a state that was already on emotional edge because of escalating tensions between the United States and North Korea.

Officials cancelled the alert, sent out by Hawaii Emergency Management Agency, nearly 40 minutes after it was issued in a scramble of confusion over why it was released — and why it took so long to rescind. Outrage was immediately expressed by state officials and among people who live in what is normally a famously tranquil part of the Pacific, as well as tourists swept up in the panic.

“The public must have confidence in our emergency alert system,” the governor, David Y. Ige, said. “I am working to get to the bottom of this so we can prevent an error of this type in the future.”

Officials said the alert was the result of human error and not the work of hackers or a foreign government. The mistake occurred during a shift-change drill that takes place three times a day at the emergency command post, according to Richard Rapoza, a spokesman for the agency. He said a new procedure was put in place hours after the mistake requiring two-step authentication before any such alert is sent out.

At no time, officials said, was there any indication that a nuclear attack had been launched on the United States.

The Federal Communications Commission announced Saturday afternoon it had begun “a full investigation into the FALSE missile alert in Hawaii.”

The alert went out at about 8:10 a.m., lighting up phones of people still in bed, having coffee by the beach at a Waikiki resort, or up for an early surf. “BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT INBOUND TO HAWAII. SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER. THIS IS NOT A DRILL,” it read.

Hawaii has been on high emotional alert — it began staging monthly air-raid drills, complete with sirens, in December — since President Trump and Kim Jong-un, the leader of North Korea, began exchanging nuclear threats. It would take about 37 minutes for a missile launched from North Korea to reach Hawaii; Honolulu is 5,700 miles from Pyongyang.